Stramondo - The Holy Scriptures

Father Raffaele Stramondo's pictorial production is distinguished by the prevalence of sacred subjects. In this painting entitled “The Gospel” we can recognize the traditional iconography of “Saint Matthew and the Angel”. A very widespread subject in seventeenth-century painting, both classicist and baroque, it consists in the representation of the evangelist Matthew in the act of writing his book under the dictation of an Angel. The scene, highly concentrated, shows a great religious intimacy and descriptive realism. The humanity and realism of the entire compositional scheme and the choice of a dark background make us think of a Caravaggesque inspiration.

Father Raffaele Stramondo's entire artistic production is part of an illustrious pictorial tradition. His style should be fully understood within the great family of Italian classicism, which leads him to adopt Naturalism as his reference language. Stramondo's pictorial approach looks to the masters of the High Renaissance and to the evolution of painting that involved the entire seventeenth century, to then flow into the various classicist currents of the contemporary era. Stramondo makes this most noble matter his own and synthesizes it into a new, original form that is his own. The peculiarities of Stramondo's classicism are to be sought, obviously, in the total naturalistic rendering of sensible reality, which he is capable of thanks to his excellent pictorial technique. A naturalistic rendering that manifests itself not only in the physiognomic and psychological truth of his characters, but also in their immersion, entirely natural, in the space of the works. Indeed, the atmospheric fusion of the subjects in space is another prerogative of the classic and naturalistic tradition that we find optimally in Stramondo's production. Also in this case, everything is resolved with great technical skill, because such fusion between subjects and space is possible thanks to the extraordinary tonal coherence of the paintings. The entire surface of Stramondo's works is perfectly unitary in the prevalence of generally brown colors. In this unity, the artist knows how to wonderfully modulate lights and shadows, measuring space and giving life to wonderful landscape backgrounds. Another peculiarity of Stramondo is his perfect balance between idealization and realism: the monumentality and magniloquence of his characters look to the glorious past of the Renaissance and the Baroque, but the artist from Belpasso tends to exalt the humanity of the subjects, with a deeply realistic touch that shows the will to adhere to more contemporary aesthetic demands.

Don Raffaele Stramondo, born Mauro Stramondo, was born in Belpasso in 1919 and passed away in Catania in 1997. Having shown innate artistic gifts since childhood, he trained at the Badia di Cava, encouraged by Abbot Ildenfonso Rea, who had noticed his talent. There he also matured his religious vocation, which would lead him to take his vows in 1932 at the age of only twelve, entering the Benedictine Order. He was still a novice when he painted the vault of the chapter house, and in 1941 he created the portrait for the abbot's tenth anniversary. In 1945 he was ordained a priest. Father Raffaele Stramondo's vast pictorial production consists mainly of oil paintings on canvas. Many works are preserved in public and private collections both in Italy and abroad.

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